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20091202

White lawyers underrepresented on SA Bench

“ANC’s racist obsession covers up racial discrimination” - report

JOHANNESBURG - The pursuit of ‘race and gender representivity’ has been an obsession of the African National Congress since October 1998. For a brief period, during Justice Minister Enver Surty 's term, the expertise and experience of individual applicants for judicial office was given greater weight.

However, under the direction of the new Minister of Justice, Jeff Radebe, and his allies on the JSC, the primary consideration in the choosing judges is (once again) the attainment of a judiciary which ‘reflects the race and gender proportions of the total population’. White South Africans now are severely underrepresented on the Bench.

As of July 2009 - 44,1% of the judges were white. This is considerably less than their proportional percentage of the advocates profession (75,6%) and the attorney's profession (73,7%). See graphs and tables on this link

Graphic: ‘As is the case with educational, medical, accounting, engineering and all technical professionals, the pool of judges also is small in South Africa: judges don’t come from the ‘general population’ but from a small pool of attorneys… South Africa now has 1,309 attorneys qualified for the Bench, of whom 281 are white women;

This policy is, on the face of it, meant to widen the pool from which judges have previously been appointed. This is proving to be an optical illusion. This policy has, in reality, severely restricted the pool from which judges are appointed; and it has been used to cover-up for severe racial discrimination.

This is because judges are not appointed from the general population, but from the ranks of those with (at the very least) a legal qualification.

When measured against the appropriate yardstick – the (tiny) proportion they take up of the legal profession - white South Africans are now severely underrepresented on the bench.

The term "genocide" was coined by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1943, writing:

'Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actionsaiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and lives of the members of such groups... '